The hand in front of your face

When I was dating my wife, we often had to travel for over an hour just to be together, such were our circumstances at the time.?I was never on time.?And therefore, I was always rushing to ‘make time.’

There wasn’t as much traffic on the roads at that time, so I was able to overtake slower vehicles routinely.?I became adept at judging the speed and distance of oncoming cars.?And I saw no danger in any of the manoeuvres.

That is until I did!

One day I came upon an articulated lorry travelling on a narrow road.?I was familiar with the road in question and made plans to pass it at a particular stretch on the route.?I calculated I would need to gain speed beforehand. ??So, I allowed space to grow between myself and the lorry and then gathered speed by catching up again, and once on the clear stretch, I pulled out to overtake, without curbing my speed.

It worked perfectly. I was moving alongside the massive load quickly and smoothly. ?Just as I was passing the back axles, I noticed the lorry slowly beginning to move out across the white line. There was no verge on either side of the road, so there was nowhere for me to get out of its way.?I decided to continue, my rationale being that the driver would see me momentarily and correct.?As I continued my overtake, the lorry continued to move out.?I couldn’t understand it. I reached for my car horn to alert the driver to my presence, but it didn’t work – it was broken.

He was squeezing me into the embankment.?I was in danger of going under one of his massive double wheels. And there was nothing I could do. I found myself frantically watching his rear-view mirror willing him to look.?But he didn’t. He was oblivious to me.?I was completely helpless. If he continued to move out, I was in a hopeless position. ?Everything flashed before me at that moment. I suddenly realised dangers I had never even dreamt of were there. In my young reasoning, my lack of experience became real.

That was when my car hit the embankment. It shot up in the air and landed under the lorry just in front of one of its axles.?Luckily, my front wheel was turned out so when it hit the road again, the car veered away from the truck’s wheels.

I managed to pass and after driving on a bit, I pulled in to inspect the damage to the car.?It was only then I realised the full picture.?The truck had been passing a cyclist.?That’s why he had pulled out over his white line. His attention had been on his inside mirror to safeguard the cyclist.?He had either forgotten to check his outside mirror or he had done so before I came into the picture.

Similarly, when I work with business owners, I find it is not the problems they see that are the problems; it’s the ones they can’t see. And there are always ones we can’t see. On paper, something may look perfect, the plans meticulous, until the project begins.??It’s then the real issues begin to appear.

But that’s the nature of the beast.?You won’t know until you do it. You won’t experience it until you act.

My car accident didn’t stop me from passing vehicles on the road. It did, however, wake me up to the fact that I’m not always in control of everything around me, despite my planning.?

It’s for the problems we can’t see that we must prepare.

We prepare ourselves!